NFL Sunday wild-card round open thread

posted at 10:30 am on January 9, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

So far, I’m off to a smashing start in post-season predictions — I managed to get the first two wrong. The New York Jets won a stunning last-second comeback victory over the Indianapolis Colts on the road, and the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks beat the Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints at home, 41-36. Both games showed that anything can happen in the NFL when two teams meet, especially in the playoffs, and two of the best quarterbacks in the league get to see that happen from their living rooms the rest of the playoffs.

Let’s see if I can’t get back to even today with the final two games of what has been a wild wild-card round:

Ravens at Chiefs – I’d love to see the Chiefs beat the Ravens, and it’s at least possible. Kansas City plays very tough at home, having only lost one game at home, but Baltimore is also 5-3 on the road. Neither team played its best ball coming down to the end of the season, either. However, Baltimore’s defense will almost certainly contain Matt Cassel and the KC running game, even if the Ravens offense has looked anemic at times in the second half of the season. Baltimore should win a low-scoring game, 17-9 — but I’ll be rooting for the Chiefs anyway.

Packers at Eagles – The Packers only just got into the playoffs, but that’s a little deceptive. They have looked formidable in the last few weeks, coming close to beating an unstoppable New England team and rolling over the Chicago Bears, two teams with playoff byes in 2010-11. The Eagles have looked tired and beaten up the last couple of weeks, with Michael Vick visibly hobbled on the field. Green Bay was only 3-5 on the road this year, but the Eagles were only 4-4 at home, too, where they lost to Minnesota and Dallas in the last two weeks. Little-known fact: the Packers led the NFC in point differential in 2010 (+148). Green Bay’s defense will solve the Vick problem and move to the divisional round against the Bears Falcons, beating the Eagles 27-19.

Update: If the Packers win, they have to face the #1 seed, not the #2 seed. I was thinking about their W/L record compared to the Seahawks but forgot about Seattle’s status as division winner and #4 seed in the playoffs. Seattle plays Da Bears next week in Chicago. Thanks to the commenters for the correction. And then I screwed up and initially wrote Patriots rather than Falcons, too.

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After my pathetic performance of predicting yesterdays games, I will slink off to my room and watch today’s games in the company of my dogs, as they won’t remind me how badly I stunk up the room yesterday…

Once again, the Jets pull out a last second win! Back in August, Ryan took a sharpie and wrote on the side of that ESPN tour bus “soon to be champs!”. The next day he said he sees a Superbowl trophy in his crystal ball.

I’m not sure whether to hope that the Eagles lose or that they win and then lose in a later round. Which one would make those Philadelphia fans who are still bitter that my San Francisco Giants won the World Series more apoplectic?

I really hated seeing both Saints and Colts lose. I’ll be rooting for KC. If they run a fast paced offense, Baltimore’s D gets gassed fast. Could care less who wins the other game, I just hope it’s fun to watch!

and hey, all the teams do it, right? So it’s really a non-issue, right?

For cripes sake, teams appeal fines. The issue still is unresolved.

JetBoy on January 9, 2011 at 11:17 AM

C’mon, Jet, you’re not actually trying to defend what happened, are you? It’s very unbecoming of you to completely change the subject in order to avoid the facts. Del mentioned NOTHING about the “sideline wall off the field;” he asked about the fine for the coach (Alosi) tripping the player as he ran down the sideline. You completely changed the subject. And as far as the issue still being “unresolved”, well, if the Jets are appealing the fines, (1) they’re in denial as much as you are, and (2) why are they appealing the fines when Alosi came right out and apologized for what he did? And yes, last time I checked, what Alosi did was definitely CHEATING.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-2oTR4Nq3A
Quit while you’re behind.

If it weren’t for the Giants collapse, the eggles wouldn’t even have made the playoffs. And then with a possible 1st round bye in view, they lose to the hap-challenged* ‘Queens. Talk about over-rated! Look for the headline:

Dude, you’re talking to Jetboy. He thinks John McCain was a good Presidential candidate and he was a fervent supporter of Charlie Crist. Reality is not the medium in which he finds a lot of interest. Leave him to his delusions.

Both games showed that anything can happen in the NFL when two teams meet, especially in the playoffs, and two of the best quarterbacks in the league get to see that happen from their living rooms the rest of the playoffs.

Dude, we already know this. I mean when arguably the best team to ever play football loses the SuperBowl to a 10 and 6 regular season team telling us anything can happen is kind of cliche.

Baltimore should win a low-scoring game, 17-9 — but I’ll be rooting for the Chiefs anyway.

Saints should blow past Seattle on cruise control, 31-13.

In the spirit of Mr. Morrissey’s predictions, both teams that won yesterday should have lost. That said, Ed’s right about the old cliché “anything can happen in the playoffs”, especially this year where only the Pats could/should be described as a dominate team.

KC will pull out a mild upset (the line is Ravens + 4), with their Seattle 12th man defense coming up big in the final quarter, 27-20.

The Eagles are favored by 3 at home, but I think they are still a bit banged up. Packers will pull away in the third quarter and coast to a victory, 31-24.

Yesterday, I thought Seattle would still be “in the game” at the end, but still lose, and the Jets would pull out an upset. Today’s games are just as much a crapshoot as yesterday, but it sure is fun watching the unsuspected events turn intended victories into defeats. New Orleans Julius Jones was crushing the Hawks defense until he went out in the 4th qtr—– Sanchez’s methodical drive in the fourth qtr that put the Jets ahead reminded me of some of the classic drives in the last minutes that define greatness. (Montana’s final drive against Elway on a Monday night, when Elway left 1:26 on the clock). Even the field goals by each kicker, (Vinatieri and Folk), added to the game’s mystery, as emotions bounced from highest to the lowest, (or the reverse), depending on your favorite team.

Real sports fans marvel at the un-predictability of the game and the players that rise to the occasion who snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, defying the odds, no, changing the odds with a single play. To slay the dragon, there must be heroes.

Jets with a nice win yesterday. That being said, Alosi’s move earlier in the season was that of an idiot, and was all the more disgraceful for the potential to injure an opposing player. I wouldn’t count on him being around in the future.

Belichick is indeed a cheater, though. Per Wikipedia:

In an incident dubbed “Spygate,”[9] on September 9, 2007, NFL security caught a Patriots video assistant taping the New York Jets’ defensive signals from an on-field location. Jets coach Eric Mangini, a former Patriots assistant, tipped off league officials that the Patriots might have been filming their signals. After the game, the Jets formally complained to the league.
On September 13, the NFL fined Belichick $500,000—the largest fine ever imposed on a coach in the league’s 87-year history,[10] and fined the Patriots $250,000. Additionally, the Patriots forfeited their first round draft pick in the 2008 NFL Draft. Goodell said that he fined the Patriots as a team because Belichick exercises so much control over the Patriots’ on-field operations that “his actions and decisions are properly attributed to the club.” Goodell considered suspending Belichick, but decided that taking away draft picks would be more severe in the long run.[11]
Belichick later issued the following statement:
“I accept full responsibility for the actions that led to tonight’s ruling. Once again, I apologize to the Kraft family and every person directly or indirectly associated with the New England Patriots for the embarrassment, distraction and penalty my mistake caused. I also apologize to Patriots fans and would like to thank them for their support during the past few days and throughout my career. […] As the Commissioner acknowledged, our use of sideline video had no impact on the outcome of last week’s game. We have never used sideline video to obtain a competitive advantage while the game was in progress. […] Part of my job as head coach is to ensure that our football operations are conducted in compliance of the league rules and all accepted interpretations of them. My interpretation of a rule in the Constitution and Bylaws was incorrect. […] With tonight’s resolution, I will not be offering any further comments on this matter. We are moving on with our preparations for Sunday’s game.”

It’s not “cheating” to make a sideline wall off the field…and hey, all the teams do it, right? So it’s really a non-issue, right?

For cripes sake, teams appeal fines. The issue still is unresolved.

JetBoy on January 9, 2011 at 11:17 AM

Isn’t breaking NFL rules cheating? That’s what we were told when the Patriots were fined for breaking NFL rules in that game against the Jets.

But the real question is, why are they appealing the fine when the infraction was indelibly captured on video tape for all to see? I can see them appealing the fine if there was no visual evidence of the infraction, but there was.

Interesting how wiki goes into great detail about this one incident, yet they make absolutely no mention in their pages about the San Francisco 49ers about that team getting huge fines from the NFL for cheating for years on the salary cap.

That is what is known as “selective history”. According to wiki, the 49ers cheating never happened.

Ed is would not be my pick for predictions today
based on yesterday’s performance but I wish
him better luck today. Still, no getting off the hook
with this line “Both games showed that anything can happen in the NFL when two teams meet, especially in the playoffs . . .”
A truism will not cut it! But I am with you on the Ravens
and will be a chicken and say nothing about the
Packers match-up so who am I to talk!

Well, Ed is 0-3 so far. Most everyone else’s predictions have come up short as well.

We need a few more Eagles fans to ‘predict’ they’ll win so the Packers can go ahead and make a day of it.

:)

catmman on January 9, 2011 at 4:04 PM

However, Baltimore’s defense will almost certainly contain Matt Cassel and the KC running game, even if the Ravens offense has looked anemic at times in the second half of the season. Baltimore should win a low-scoring game, 17-9

If you still believe the NFL destroyed the video to “protect the Patriots”, why do you continue to consume the NFL’s product?

BTW, according to my source at the Boston Herald (one of their sports editors at the time), the NFL destroyed those videos because there was nothing on them to prove the allegations.

Remember, the Boston Herald broke that story, which has absolutely nothing to do with the earlier Jets game incident. And then they later retracted the story, and apologized for running it in the first place.

At the same time, the Herald’s competitor, the NY Times-owned Boston Globe, did their own investigation of the guy making the allegations. They discovered that he had in fact been fired from the Patriots for illegally taping the phone calls of his superiors, and they also dug up some other very unsavory stuff about the guy.

As I have said time and again, automatically judging the Patriots guilty of repeated offenses, without absolutely any evidence, is a cult not dissimilar to some weird religion.

If you are so convinced the Patriots cheated repeatedly in games and the NFL gave them a pass for doing so, boycott the NFL.

BTW, since all those accusations flew about the Pats a few years back, they have been under more scrutiny than any other team in regards to this stuff. And except for the year after when Brady was knocked out for the season in the first quarter of the first game of the season, they have compiled a rather impressive W-L record. Did they cheat this year too?

One of the best games I’ve seen the Ravens play. Flacco and the offense gave the defense some rest time and they showed what they can do when the offense doesn’t just go three and out (like they have on many occasions this year). If they can keep that up against Pittsburgh next Saturday, they have a chance.

The Rams had the same complaint against the Pats when the Rams were the greatest show on turf. They also loudly accused the Pats of holding receivers on pass routes which caused the NFL to change the illegal contact rule.

Pineapple Guy – you are so easy to tweak. What is funnier is the thoughts you then express. Seriously ? -they destroyed the tapes because there essentially was nothing on them? Wow you are gullible . Of course as sensitive as you are about the subject it seems you won’t let objectivity get in the way.
Enjoy the ( * )

“This episode represents a calculated and deliberate attempt to avoid long-standing rules designed to encourage fair play and promote honest competition on the playing field,” Goodell said in a letter to the Patriots.

If the NFL destroyed the tapes, why did they show some of then publicly first?

In New York, where Walsh and Goodell met at 7:30 a.m. and league officials later publicly showed footage from Walsh’s tapes, Goodell said a key purpose in speaking with Walsh was to learn more about the alleged filming of the Rams’ walkthrough.

“We were able to verify that there was no Rams walkthrough tape,” Goodell said. “No one asked him to tape the walkthrough. He’s not aware of anybody else who may have taped the walkthrough. He had not seen such a tape. He does not know of anybody who says there is a tape.”

Levy told The New York Times last week that Walsh never claimed to have a tape of the Rams’ walkthrough, and was not the source for the Herald article.

Remember forever the Patriots were the FIRST TEAM that was fined 500000 dollars . Also, Bill B was hit with a 250000 dollars. All that for doing nothing. Weird. You should boycott the NFL.

CWforFreedom on January 9, 2011 at 8:02 PM

Nice try! I know you were still in 4th grade in 2000, but here it is

Former San Francisco 49ers executives Carmen Policy and Dwight Clark have agreed to a $600,000 fine, and the team will pay $300,000 and lose its fifth draft choice in 2001 and third in 2002 in a settlement over alleged salary cap violations reached with the NFL and the NFL Players Association that was announced yesterday.

Policy, the former 49ers team president and now a minority owner of the Cleveland Browns, will pay $400,000 and Clark, the former San Francisco general manager now in the same position with the Browns, will pay $200,000. According to the league, the two men agreed to the terms “without admitting any wrongdoing

PRINCETON, N.J. — A New Jersey lawyer wants the nation’s top court to review his lawsuit stemming from the New England Patriots’ 2007 “Spygate” scandal.

Carl Mayer is a New York Jets season ticket-holder. He and two other lawyers filed the class-action lawsuit.

They announced Thursday that they had filed a petition asking the high court to review the case.

The lawsuit seeks millions of dollars from the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick, claiming they deceived customers by secretly videotaping Jets coaches’ in-game signals. It claims fans spent large sums to see games that were essentially rigged.

A U.S. District Court judge and a federal appeals panel both dismissed the suit.

And finally, proof positive that only the Patriots did this stuff, from a guy who has won back-to-back Super Bowls himself.

We originally posted this WFAN interview as having been conducted during Super Bowl week. It actually dates back to September. Regardless, it’s still interesting to note how commonplace former Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson feels the use of cameras is by NFL teams. He admits he used them to steal signs all the time.

Q: How about the spying thing Jimmy. You’re a coach does that bother you what Belichick did?

JJ: Oh please. I’ve said it on our show. Eighteen years ago a scout for the Chiefs told me what they did, and he said what you need to do is just take your camera and you go and zoom in on the signal caller and that way you can sync it up. The problem is that if they’re not on the press box side you can’t do it from the press box, you have to do it from the sideline. This was 18 years ago.

Q: You think the NFL came down too hard on them?

JJ: No, no, I said it on the show. He was wrong for doing it for the simple reason that the league knew this was going on not just in New England but around the league. And the league sent out the memorandum to all of the teams saying you cannot do this. And so that’s when Bill Belichick was wrong. After he got the memorandum saying don’t do it any more, he did it.

Q: Did you ever steal signals?

JJ: Oh in a heartbeat, yeah. Yes I did.

Q: Via video, Jimmy? Or no?

JJ: Oh yeah, I did it with video and so did a lot of other teams in the league. Just to make sure that you could study it and take your time, because you’re going to play the other team the second time around. But a lot of coaches did it, this was commonplace.

Q: But did you do it by taping the signal caller?

JJ: Yeah.

Q: Oh you did.

JJ: That’s what I’m saying. I was saying one of Marty Schottenheimer’s scouts, Mark Hatley, who has passed away now, Mark told me that’s how they did it, and Howard Mudd their offensive line coach with Kansas City, who now coaches for Tony Dungy, he was the best in the entire league at stealing signals.

Q: Where’d you put your guy who was videotaping? Where was he?

JJ: My guy was up with my camera crew in the press box. So you’d just put an extra camera up with your camera crew in the press box who zoomed in on the signal callers. That’s the best way to do it, but anyway you can’t always do that because the press box camera crew might be on the same side as the opposing team. If they’re on the same side as the opposing team that’s when you need to do it from the sideline.

Hey crybabies, da J-E-T-S Jets, Jets, Jets won fair and square. Tooo bad Colts. Next week we’re coming for you BB and you and your cheesy Krafters will have a melt down when we spread your cornerbacks thin and your receivers end up with nada on Reeves Island.